Aftershock
by ilovenascar
Summary: Aftermath of the infamous wreck in Season 3. (Claire/Alex, Tess/Nick) UPDATED!
1. Chapter 1

Title: Aftershock  
Author: April  
Fandom: McLeod's Daughters (Claire/Alex, Tess/Nick)  
Feedback: Yes, please  
Disclaimer: All usual applies. I own no one.  
Summary: A different twist on Claire's accident.

Nick Ryan looked at his watch again, his brother's ring in his pocket. Alex Ryan approached him and Nick signaled that he had found it, not wanting to take the chance of anyone else knowing and accidentally letting it slip. He sensed the trouble and turmoil in his brother without even glancing at his face. "If you're having second thoughts, you're a bloody idiot."

"I'm not." Alex paused. "I wish it was that simple." He took a breath and blew it out. "I keep hearing Charlotte cry. I know it's crazy. She's not within miles. Claire's got her. They're fine."

"They're late," Nick said, looking at his brother. "Over an hour, by my calculations."

Alex nodded. "I know. But you know Claire. She knows everyone in the area as well as you or I. She could have gotten stopped by anyone, couldn't get away fast enough." Nick nodded. "So why don't either of us think that's what happened?" Alex asked.

"If Dad was in town, saw Charlotte, it could take hours before he and Claire stop talking and he lets his only grandchild leave." Nick smiled at that, glad things had worked out as well as they had for Harry with both Alex and Charlotte.

Alex looked at Nick. "I know I'm going to feel like a prize fool when we see they're okay, but...will you drive me?"

Nick nodded, a little worried about Tess as well. It had been a hard month for her, breaking up with Dave, being so scared that she would end up like her mum. He knew she was exhausted, stressed, not her usual bubbly self. It was more than that though. Before Charlotte's birth, she'd told him that she felt something was wrong, even though she couldn't put her finger on what it was. He'd never experienced that before, until this moment. Something was wrong and he knew it was with Tess. He just didn't know what it was.

They hadn't driven far when they heard the screams: both easily identified, but neither Claire's. Alex felt like a knife was twisting inside him as he heard his daughter cry, but he always felt like that until he could figure out what she wanted and give it to her. Claire teased him about spoiling her, but all he knew was that there'd always been something in him that had to make sure Charlotte had everything her heart desired and then some. He couldn't stand seeing his girls cry.

Nick threw his ute in park and ran to Tess and Charlotte McLeod, checking them over quickly before holding them. "Are you both okay?" Nick asked Tess, but she didn't seem to hear him. She didn't respond to him at all.

Alex saw the cliff and was torn between comforting Charlotte and going to Claire.

"Go," Nick instructed him. "I've got Charlotte. Just be careful." He wanted to help Alex, but his arms were full of Charlotte and Tess.

Alex used the radio in Nick's ute to call Terry for help before tying a good strong rope around himself to the back of the ute, starting down. He didn't want to wait, couldn't. If Claire was still alive, if he let her time run out with him just waiting, he'd never live with himself. Even if there was nothing he could do, he had to be with her. He just had to take it one step at a time. Patience was never a strong suit with him, one of the things that had hindered his courtship of Claire over the past year. He wanted to skip all this until he had his girls safe in his arms again. He could still hear Charlotte crying and wondered if Claire could as well.

Tess' head was bloody, but that wasn't what scared Nick the most. "Tess. Tess, sweetheart, shh. Shh. You've got to stop screaming. Alex is going to check on her. He's going to get her out." He whispered, rubbing her back, whispering to her like Claire would to a spooked horse. "I know you're scared. I know it's Claire. He's going to get her out."

Terry Dodge arrived with Meg and Jodi Fountain. "I rang Kilarney as well. He's on his way." Terry said as Meg reached for Charlotte.

Tess held Charlotte closer, tighter, the baby's cheek against Tess' curls. It was the first time Nick knew Tess could understand some of what was going on around her. He looked at Meg and then back at Tess. "It's Meg, sweetheart. You know Charlotte's safe with her. We'll stay right here where you can see her, but we need to get you both checked out." Nick would prefer that Charlotte go home, knowing Claire wouldn't want her there. He also knew that he had to take it slowly with Tess; she seemed to be afraid to let Charlotte out of her arms, out of her sight, not that he blamed her.

Tess nodded, slowly letting Meg take the screaming baby. She even let Jodi look at her head, but she wouldn't let Jodi touch her. She stopped screaming, although the sobs racked her body, wetting Nick's shirt in an instant. She couldn't let go of him or permit him to let go of her.

"She's in shock," Jodi whispered, holding the kit.

Nick nodded. "Leave it there. I'll see what I can do in a bit. When Alex gets Claire up here, Claire will need help until the others arrive." Jodi nodded. "Can you check on Charlotte? I don't know if she's crying because of what happened or if something hurts her." Jodi nodded, going back to Meg and the baby.

"I'll see what I can do to help Alex," Terry promised Nick, already trying to figure out if there was another way to get Claire back up without causing more pain and destruction to her. The ute, or what was left of it, could be pulled up with a chain at some point, but to do that to Claire would put more stress on her body.

As Alex neared the bottom, Harry Ryan pulled up alone. In an instant, without speaking, he took in his crying granddaughter, Nick holding Tess, and looked towards the ravine. He held his breath as much as all the others when Alex finally reached Claire.

The door to the ute was open and Alex could touch Claire. The first thing he did was check her pulse, weak, thready. She was pale, clammy, and he knew instinctively it was so much worse than what she'd been through after the horse fell on her. He thought she was dead at first until she moaned.

"It's okay, Claire. I'm here. I'm here. BOM's up there with Tess. They're safe." He knew instinctively what she'd done, what she'd had to do. "You did good, sweetheart. You saved them. Only fight, okay? Don't give up. Don't you dare give up. They still need you. I need you." All their lives they had pushed each other competitively, but this was life and death. He couldn't let her go.

He was scared to move her, scared to touch her, scared to make it worse. He surveyed the external damage quickly, smelling the faint odor, knowing he had to move her soon. "Can you wrap your arms around my neck? I'll carry you up. I'll carry you home." His heart broke when she couldn't even do that. He wrapped his arms around her, lifting her, and longed to feel her arms around him as they had been so many times before.

Jodi came down on a rope with a board. It was a crude gurney, but it would have to work. Jodi searched Alex's eyes,. "We can put her on the board. Harry and Terry will pull her up on the rope. Then we'll go up after her."

Alex nodded. "Did you hear that, Claire? You'll go up to Tess and BOM and I'll be right behind you." He took off his coat to make a pillow for her head as he gently, lovingly, lay her on the board as he would have their bed. He kissed her forehead and gave one of the ropes a pull. "I love you. I'm right behind you." He watched her slowly start being raised up.

"How bad is it?" Jodi asked, no longer the medic, but a kid just as scared as the others.

"Not good. Her leg's in bad shape, she lost some blood, the impacts couldn't have been good. She moaned. I never thought I'd be grateful for a moan. That's about all the response I got, but..."

Jodi nodded. "It's a response." Like most of the others, she'd feared Claire dead.

Meg stifled a scream as the ute exploded, burying her head, trying not to scare Charlotte or Tess further, but her daughter had been down there. It would hurt to lose Claire, so much like a daughter to her, but it would kill her to lose Jodi.

Tess buried her head into Nick's chest, refusing to look up, even when he whispered that Claire had finally made it to the top.

Nick wanted to go check on his brother and friends, but knew there was nothing he could do for Alex that Harry wasn't, nor for Jodi what Terry wasn't. All he could do was take care of Tess like Claire couldn't. He took Charlotte so Meg could sit with Claire until the others climbed up or until help finally arrived.


	2. Chapter 2

The hospital seemed like a maze and it would have taken a score card for any of them to keep track of any of the others. Upon being assured of Charlotte's wellbeing, Harry had taken her back in his arms, walking with her, pacing the tile floor as he had both his sons at her age. Terry was pacing as well, anxious to know about his family and friends.

Nick looked up when Tess finally opened her eyes. He wanted to hold her, but he didn't want to scare her anymore than she already was. "You're all right. You fainted. They wanted to check you out, make sure you didn't have anything more than a concussion." That, in itself, was enough.

"Claire." Tess was already starting to sit up, trying to get loose.

"No, no, sweetheart. Leave those there." He kissed her blonde curls. "The doctor will check you out and we'll get you to Claire, but she's still in surgery. You can't be with her yet."

"BOM?" Tess' voice was shaky, but she'd stopped fighting for freedom. She looked lost and scared, like the day Ruth had left Drover's Run with her in tow.

"With Dad. You know there's nothing in the world he wouldn't do for her. He's probably already added a couple more horses to her collection. Who knows what else?" Nick managed a smile, although smiling was the last thing he felt capable of doing.

"I don't remember..." She shook her head, as if trying to clear it. "Nick, I just don't...I don't remember."

"You will." He prayed though that he would be wrong. With the concussion and the shock, maybe the cold hard truth was enough. Maybe she wouldn't have to relive it as he'd done his own accident. "It'll come in time. When we got there, you were in shock. I don't know how it happened, only that it did." He was torn between feeling horrible about Claire and thanking God Tess and Charlotte had been survived.

"I want to see her." Tess was crying now and he sat on the bed next to her. She rested her head against him, making his shirt wet again, but he didn't care. "I want to see my sister."

Meg hadn't prayed since she was a little girl. To tell the truth, she hadn't seen where it had done anyone any good when she did and she never was very religious. With Jodi and Tess with doctors, Claire in surgery, she fell back to her childhood lessons in a hurry. She had lost track of Alex; her mind had simply filled with "her girls" as she thought of them. All Jack's daughters, all three of them, not that she planned on telling them. Once again, she felt like she failed, as a mom, and now as a surrogate mom.

"You had one job. One job. And you scuffed it up," she muttered under her breath.

"What was that?" Frank Da Costa joined her with a paper cup of coffee in his hands. As she spotted it, she thought of Tess, of the girls' first arguments when the "city girl" had moved to the country, back home.

"Nothing." She took the coffee, just holding it in her hand.

"I saw Nick, briefly. He wouldn't let me talk to Tess, just said she didn't remember anything." Meg nodded. "Do you know what happened?"

Meg turned her attention to him. "What?"

"What happened? At the accident site, with the girls' ute. It would be nice to have all the formalities..."

The coffee dropped, burning Meg's hand slightly, but she didn't feel it. "Get out."

He looked at her like he wasn't sure he understood what was going on. It was his turn to question, "What?"

"Jodi could have been killed today, Frank. As could Tess. Claire still...And you're worried about formalities? Get out. Out of this hospital." She started walking towards him and he started taking steps backwards quickly. They went through the lobby where both Terry and Harry stopped pacing to watch what was happening, both ready to break in if Meg showed the slightest sign of needing it. "IF we get around to putting the pieces of what happened back together, IF the girls are inclined to talk to you, THEN MAYBE you can come back. Until then, do your bloody job." She let the door close between them and was unaware of what was happening until she heard Charlotte babbling and felt Terry's arms around her. She reached up to find fresh tears in her eyes and brushed them away quickly.

"Ms. Fountain?" The nurse came out, looking for Meg's mother.

"Mrs. Dodge," Meg corrected softly, her hands on Terry's, finally starting to realize she wasn't alone in this, not anymore. "Is my daughter awake?" The nurse nodded.

Meg looked up at Terry. "Come with me?"

"Of course. Thought you'd never ask." He didn't care who Jodi's biological father was; he felt like she was his child. He'd almost gotten the pleasure of giving her away not long before, on the day that turned out to be his wedding day to Meg.

Harry watched them leave and continued pacing. He made sure no one was looking at him and softly whispered the song that he'd taught the boys at her age. Things had been so much simpler then. Without Sandra to try to keep up with, without Liz's earth-shattering news...no, he wouldn't think of that today. He was making a conscious choice, the same one as Alex had made before him. Whoever donated the sperm to create the child, he was the child's father. Only in his case, the child was all grown up.

Alex walked into the room and it was obvious that he hadn't been checked out since the explosion. He looked lost, much the same way Tess had, and Harry could remember that feeling well. He was as worried about that feeling as he was the signs of physical damage to his son's body. "Claire?" He dared whisper her name, scared to hear the answer. What would his son do if the woman he loved was dead?

"They took her away from me, Dad." Alex whispered, using not "Harry" but "Dad" as he hadn't used since before Liz's betrayal. "They wouldn't let me go with her."

"Let's get you cleaned up," Harry said, leading his son as he had when he was a lad. "Then you can hold your daughter. She needs her dad."

Alex nodded, looking at Charlotte. Even his daughter couldn't make him smile, but there was the look of love in his eyes at her, the same one that had been there from the moment she was born. He silently let the nurses clean him off and stitch him up, thinking of the time in Melbourne that he had just spent with Claire. It had been a honeymoon of sorts, their honeymoon. He thought of the ring in his brother's coat, how he had planned from the second they came home from the trip how to pop the question. Now as long as she was alive, it didn't matter to him. It wouldn't even matter if she said no or that she wanted to wait, as long as she was alive. He loved his parents, despite the circumstnaces, his brother, and Tess too as a little sister, but as far as he was concerned his world started and ended with Claire and Charlotte. He finally took his daughter into his arms again, cradling her, the two connecting as they always did. Peter had met her one time in her entire life; as far as Charlotte was concerned, her daddy had always been Alex Ryan.


End file.
